New Year listening

Not many years ago I'd spend New Year's Eve / Day (or parts thereof) tuning into the international media available and monitoring how they were celebrating the arrival of New Year. This was a particularly big event in 2000.

It used to be good fun to contribute audio clips to the media programme Communications World, which, alas, is no longer with us. Nevertheless the tradition continues and Tom Sundstom's blog features links to the sites with the information you need to welcome in New Year around the world.

It's a nice idea and can be quite a culturally interesting experience. The journey from one timezone to the next isn't an easy one, however. If you're listening on shortwave radio you have to contend with poor reception, noise and interference on the frequencies of the stations you're trying to tune in. More recently the internet has provided a more widely accessible means of tuning in radio and TV broadcasts across the world, but this too is troubled with broken links and full streaming servers.

In some ways the struggle makes actually hearing the New Year being welcomed in half-way around the world all the more special, as if such international efforts are still early pioneering steps. Although this is no longer the case, if you don't have a tracking satellite system to cover the sky from North America to the Orient, there's still little that can be taken for granted in listening to live broadcasts from around the world.